New York – The Rev. Al Sharpton criticized efforts to mute the Black Lives Matter movement Saturday, saying a sustained protest is the only way to force change.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
“It’s mind changing time,” Sharpton told listeners during his weekly address at the National Action Network’s “House of Justice” in Harlem.
He urged others to ignore the calls from critics to scale back or stop rallies organized by the Black Lives Matter movement.
He spoke a day before the two-year anniversary of the death of Eric Garner, saying a series of unjustified killings by police officers demanded an outcry. Garner died in a police chokehold in the New York City borough of Staten Island on July 17, 2014.
“We promised the Erics of the world that we won’t stop until they change things,” Sharpton said. “It may take longer than we want but we’ve got to get there. There’s no better place to go.”
Sharpton said numerous protests create a climate for change and provide participants a sense of sanity amid rising gun-related violence. He also deplored the killing of police officers in Dallas last week.
“Don’t paint us as anti-cop. We are not anti-police. We’re anti-wrong,” he said.
Later, Sharpton led a march of over 100 people through Brooklyn. At intervals, they chanted “RIP Eric Garner,” ”No justice, no peace” and “I can’t breathe.”
Marching down Atlantic Avenue, Sharpton told a reporter: “We’re dying that two years later that we still have not seen justice and we wanted people to know that we were not going to let the fact that it’s been two years deter our aggressive activism.”
The march concluded in Prospect Park, where a taped message from Beyonce was played for the crowd.
“I’m very sorry I couldn’t be there tonight and I’m painfully sorry for your loss,” she said. “I’m committed to standing beside you and making sure Eric’s death was not in vain.”
Also marching was Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, 66, who told the crowd: “I am so glad that you all came out. Not only for the support of me but the support of all the mothers from all over the nation. Two years later we still haven’t gotten justice. … This is the kind of unity that we need.”
So we’re has Al been hiding. Guess he needs to be in the news.
Why does VIN have to mention what this piece of garbage has to say?
Every one of the people that were shot by the police had been resisting arrest and fighting the officers who tried to arrest them. These so called activists have to tell the people not to resist or to talk back to the law officers.
How much longer will this hatemonger be allowed to remain free?
Black Lives Matter is a loose, messy movement containing wrong and right people in one big mix.
If black lives matter – go rally in black neigbourhoods to stop most blacks being killed, by the way, by other blacks!
Instead of marching against police or white neigbourhoods with your racist agenda!
I don’t see Al taking to the streets of Bed-Stuy every time some black thug with a hoodie and Michael Jordans blows away another black thug. Maybe he doesn’t want to get his thousand dollar suit dirty?
Whose muting them???
All lives matter, especially blue lives. what doesn’t matter is the hate monger schvartze Al Sharpton, his life doesn’t matter.
To #3- Your facts are wrong; the motorists in MN was following the cop’s instructions, and reaching for his wallet, and license. He told the cop that he was legally licensed to carry a firearm. The cop panicked and opened fire, on the motorist. In the case of the fleeing motorist in N. Charleston, SC, the cop shot that motorist in the back, and is on trial for murder. There was another cop in Atlanta who was also charged with murder, in an incident involving a motorist. I think that the safest place to reach for one’s license and registration (when a cop requests those documents), would be to have them clipped to the sun visor. Then, there would be no question what someone was reaching for. When a motorist leaves his vehicle, he can then place those documents back in his wallet.